Sebastian brings his anticipation into his dreams. However, his dreaming mind brings him back to the very place he has been trying to escape over the past year.

…

The hallway lights of her old apartment were warm.

These golden lights brought Sebastian a deep sense of anticipation.

They were like beacons of happiness on those nights he would go to visit Anisa.

Nights like these used to mean something.

Nights like these were all Sebastian had ever known.

These eternal nights within the great golden city of Mare Crisium,

His old home.

The purple shimmer of the Iridescence filled the sky.

Sebastian and Anisa would sit together and watch it sway and swirl for hours.

Drinking Crimson Crescent Pinot Noir.

They talked about anything and everything.

But one of these nights changed everything.

Sebastian closed the door of Anisa’s apartment behind him.

The weight of their last conversation was still palpable.

His heart pounded and his breaths were heavy.

They yelled at each other for almost an hour.

Wound after wound, each jab struck deeper.

Until finally, she told him there was somebody else.

In that moment, nothing around him felt real.

The golden lights became a nightmare.

They flared brighter and brighter as the weight of reality settled in.

The lines of the hall began to sway and swirl.

Sebastian began to take one step at a time.

The first few were very difficult, but as time passed, they became more manageable.

One foot at a time.

One day at a time.

Sebastian moved forward.

And after a year of planning and saving, he moved downward.

Heat surrounded the walls of the hallway as it made its descent.

A brilliant flame surrounded the vessel as it made its way through the Earth’s atmosphere.

The floors of the ship rumbled.

Thrusters ignited.

Warm light surrounded the ship.

Golden light.

Brighter and brighter.

The planet’s gravity pulled more and more.

The thrusters rumbled louder.

Sebastian’s seat shook.

This hallway never seemed to end.

"It’s late and… it’s time for you to leave. Just get out."

The rumbling subsided,

The noise softened,

The ship had landed.

Yet, the golden light remained.

Momentarily dim, but as the blast shields rose and the view around the ship became clear,

The light was blinding.

But he had finally made it.

He arrived at the source of it all.

…

Sebastian has just landed in the Iridescence.

The shuttle touched down on a glass sand-covered landing pad.

The thrusters have completely shut off, their steel flaps still bright orange from the heat.

Technicians spray a liquid nitrogen solution around the exit hatch of the ship. The exterior of the craft cools almost immediately.

His mind has slipped into this poignant memory.

All this anticipation he’s feeling while waiting for those doors to open,

It’s a brief repose from the weight he’s been carrying all year.

Now it’s his turn to get up and exit the ship.

He grabs his luggage and begins walking down the hallway.

This is heavier than he remembers.

…

The passengers began to off-board directly onto the landing strip.

This seemed odd, but no one else was bothered; so why would he be?

Sebastian stepped off the shuttle.

However, his feet didn’t find the ground.

Instead, the concrete beneath him dissolved into sand.

Sebastian began to sink into the glass.

As the sand reached his waist, he tried to cry out. But he made no sound. He was drowned out by the glass whirlpool around him.

Sounds of the desert.

Sounds of the Earth.

His cries for help were one amongst billions.

The glass sands reached his neck.

The Iridescence consumed him. It went on for months.

But finally, just before being entirely submerged and only his hands remained above the sand, his fingers found leverage.

He clung on, but just barely.

Sebastian’s lungs were full of glass and dust. He began to drown beneath a dried seabed.

Above the sand, Sebastian could hear something.

A distant thrumming,

That soon became a loud, steady, drumbeat,

Which then became a thunderous roar.

…

Sebastian wakes up.

Or at least, part of him has.

The intensity of his dream has stirred him into lucidity.

The blue glow of the desert fills his apartment.

The balcony doors are open, allowing a gentle breeze to blow in.

The city outside is dead silent, its vacancy allows the desert’s wind to howl.

It’s a haunting sound—as if billions of buried voices hum from beneath the dunes.

He didn’t leave those doors open. It could have been somebody else.

Yet, Sebastian is completely unbothered by all of this.

He’s missed this feeling, and it’s been too long since he’s felt it:

Everything is okay and he can say it without a doubt.

His mind returns to the great golden city of his past life.

How it once brought him absolute stability.

But now that’s all long gone and far away.